Now that departing President Joe Biden has outlived his usefulness to the Left, there is a new willingness to concede the press dropped the ball in assessing his ability to seek reelection and then serve a second term that would last until he was 86 years old.

“I thought Joe Biden was going to prove his doubters wrong at the big debate,” the liberal blogger and columnist Matt Yglesias told Semafor. “I know that ever since that humiliation, the whole world thinks the entire media was in on a massive cover-up, but the fact is many of us (and seemingly many members of his team) genuinely thought the situation was better than it was.”